Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 March 10

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March 10

Laptop Screen Edges

The black screen edge on my toshiba by the logo has come loose for some reason. I am talking about the black plastic that surrounds the main screen. i am thinking that with continued use the side and bottom edges may come off and may expose the screen in a bad way. Are there any ways to get the plastic edges to get tight again like with glue etc...--logger (talk) 01:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well if it is something that you want to keep in warranty, don't glue it, call up the manufacturer. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 02:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I speak from personal experience when I tell you NOT to use a nail gun. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 19:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Ouch. :) bibliomaniac15 23:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

need memory

I need memory with the following attributes.

1. Memory Size: 1024MB
2. Memory Speed: 266MHz PC2700
3. Memory Type: DDR

Compatible with IBM ThinkPad T.

Where do I find?

Thank you.--Goon Noot (talk) 02:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

PS I don't want two 512MB sticks, one of my memory slots is broken.--Goon Noot (talk) 02:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you try Newegg? Just wondering ... Kushal 03:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This eBay search shows that components there start at around fifty bucks (shipping included) for a single 1GB stick of PC2700 in SODIMM (laptop) form factor. (Though it is eBay--be cautious over there!) Also, is your problem with a memory slot being broken related to this issue, where memory in one slot is simply not recognized? IBM may fix that one for free; it's worth giving them a call. grendel|khan 12:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Lenovo sells half as much memory for the same price, but you get the fancy static proof bag and bulletproof box. :D\=< (talk) 18:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Froth was trying to be sarcastic. What I read from his post is: Don't buy from Lenovo. Kushal 03:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I did. The only reason you pay $700 more than you should for a laptop is for the industry leading thinkpad dependability. I paid $150 for an SO-DIMM gig stick of RAM from lenovo and it came in a static-proof bag and bulletproof cardboard box. :D\=< (talk) 01:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Formatting query

What is the enlarged (and left-aligned) first letter of the first word in an article called? Thanks for your help! — [sd] 12:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean a drop cap? (Apparently the more generalized term is "initial", but all the ones I can recall seeing are drop caps.) grendel|khan 12:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thanks for the quick assistance. [sd] 12:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

MS Outlook 2003 SP2 - Inbox

My sub-window showing the text of the messages has vanished. How do I recover it please? Kittybrewster ☎ 12:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I assume you mean the Reading pane. If so, go to view menu>reading pane>right (or bottom)

X201 (talk) 12:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Dual boot Xubuntu and xp - yet again

Hello, dear friends. Sorry for the abrupt disappearance a few days ago, but I've moved and my PC's not up to snuff yet, and I am still waiting to get a permanent Internet connection. Anyway, I'm getting a new hard drive, a 160 gig baby from Maxtor, and I want to divide it as follows:

• Linux partition - for Xubuntu probably - 20-30 g
• xp partition - for compatibility stuff if I need it - 20-30 g
• rest - data.

My questions as to this:

1. What to install first (Xubuntu preferred)?
2. How to order the partitions best?

It's gonna be safe - only Linux is gonna have Internet access :) anyway, suggestions welcome, all the best from the beautiful city of Olsztyn. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Ey Ouro. Boo maxtor, yeeeeeah Xubuntu! This is how you want it:

Primary 1 - XP - 20GB

Primary 2 - /boot - 50mb or whatever

Primary 3 - Your data, format it fat32 if you need it at all from Windows. Don't trust wrappers.

EXTENDED

Logical 1 - / - 10GB?

Logical 2 - /home - 20GB

Logical 3 - swap - 2GB

--:D\=< (talk) 18:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and definitely install Windows first. And partition and format everything even before that from a gparted livecd, except leave unused space for the XP partition.. let the XP installer make its own NTFS partition in the empty space. :D\=< (talk) 18:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Maxtors rock, Froth, been usin' 'em for years now. Anyhoo, I figured the gparted bit - always have it handy - and the fat32 bit, I was only unsure how to order the partitions around. Thanks loads! --Ouro (blah blah) 20:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Pah, Western Digital is the best hands down. The order of the partitions doesn't really matter, other than that windows likes to be #1, /boot should be primary (don't think it HAS to be), and you can only have 4 primaries before you go to extended :D\=< (talk) 20:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Make your data partition NTFS, as ntfs-3g is stable now. Or format it as ext3 and install ext2IFS (yes it works with ext3 is well) on Windows. FAT32 has lots of fragmentations and the 4GiB limit means you can't even store an image of a DVD. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:45, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm gonna be accessing my data mainly from Xubuntu, but there could come a time when I could need it under win (that's why I'm installing it - should I need certain software that's only available for windows). The DVD image is a point. Cheers, Ouro (when he was too lazy to log in). --83.9.68.252 (talk) 07:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I definitely don't trust ntfs-3g.. if it can't even force mount without serious risk of data loss then it's obviously not stable enough for backup purposes. FAT support is 100% :D\=< (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm gonna go with FAT32 for now, I think. I can cope with the fragmentation and I'm used to it anyway. Keep your fingers crossed, the disk is due in today. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done It's up and running. I'm gonna be back in a while. Thanks for the help, Froth! --Ouro (too lazy to log in again). --83.16.188.202 (talk) 11:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Mega Byte & Giga Byte

How many Mega byte equals 1 Giga byte? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.200.103.2 (talk) 18:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Approximately one thousand megabytes is one gigabyte.87.102.94.48 (talk) 18:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, not approximately. We have names now. :D\=< (talk) 18:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If you think megabyte is 10⁶ bytes and gigabyte is 10⁹ bytes, then you have 1000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte. If you think megabyte is 2²⁰ bytes and gigabyte is 2³⁰ bytes, as you often do, then you have 2¹⁰ megabytes = 1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte. Read megabyte and gigabyte. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 18:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A gigabyte is not 2³⁰, that would be a gibibyte. :D\=< (talk) 18:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, Gigabyte is in common usage, often where gibibyte is the defined correct term.

To the original poster (Hello!) Our Gigabyte article explains some of the confusion. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 19:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You link to Gibibyte, and yet you missed the "gigabyte... can... be a synonym for gibibyte". Megabyte has been used as $2^{20}$ for quite some time, and even now it is not incorrect usage (unrecommended, maybe). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Just when I thought computers couldn't get any more confusing. I understand it all, but I can see how a layperson would have a major headache when trying to buy a computer. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 19:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Simply speaking, you can usually think about it as 1024 Megabytes in a Gigabyte. Useight (talk) 01:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The gigabyte/gibibyte distinction is usually not meaningful for things like buying a computer. When you're comparing components (how much hard drive space or RAM, for example), the same unit will always be in effect. Hard drive space is almost always specified in base-10 gigabytes, while RAM is always specified in base-2 gigabytes, so unless you're actually doing capacity planning where you know your needs more specifically than just "bigger is better", they may as well call the units of RAM potrzebies or something.

The average user can safely forget about the SI prefixes, IMO. I've been in the software biz for many years and have never once heard anyone using "gibibyte" and friends. A google search for megabyte gives millions of hits, while a search for mebibyte gives around 36,000 -- and almost all of them are about what it is and why no one cares. :) --Sean 13:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Enemy Territory

I hate buying presents, but it seems I soon have to. The one for which I should get something always complains that Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory doesn't run well on Windows Vista. I think he should have upgraded his games instead of going for Vista. Then a day ago I stumbled upon Super Gamer LiveCD that has it. It looks like quite perfect (=free), but download size is huge for my <60kB/s download rate. Is there something similar out there that would be a bit more minimal that has/on which can be installed Enemy Territory (yes and also put on something I can just handle over)? Sorry for my English. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A DVD is not too big for 60kB/s. In round figures, it would take 100,000 seconds to download 4 gigabytes at 40 kilobytes per second. That's 1667 minutes. 27 hours. Just over a day. Just run the torrent for a day and you have it. You even have 20KB/s to spare. :D\=< (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Öhm, let's play it is too big. My computer is quite noisy, öhm öhm. Öhm. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 18:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I just love öhm. Maybe I'll start getting it now. Hints are still appreciated. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 18:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

ಠ_ಠ :D\=< (talk) 18:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You forgot the law of download speeds. I go at 3 mb/s a second, but when I put a torrent on it NEVER goes above 100 kb/s. Thusly, 60 kb/s will never go above 2 kb/s. I have seen this happen with DSL all the time, it's quite sad. Of course, it may just be me, your mileage may vary wildly. Also, for the record: my PC sounds like a vacuum cleaner when I turn it on. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 19:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yah, typical for America. With a horribly misconfigured setup. Open the incoming bittorrent port, tweak your load. You can triple that 100kb/s easy :D\=< (talk) 20:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I've opened the port and saw absolutely no improvement. It must be the wireless, but I get 2 mb/s consistantly on Steam, so why should bittorrent be different? 206.252.74.48 (talk) 20:44, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It's complicated. How many peers are you connecting to? :D\=< (talk) 21:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I connect to about 20 for each torrent, but only about 5-10 actually add to my download speed. And each one at about 2 kb/s... 206.252.74.48 (talk) 12:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I downloaded Knoppix and ET Linux version. Took some 7 hours. It\s playing fine, but some map&mod downloads crash the computer. My keyboard map is now freaked, can\t sign this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.149.217.84 (talk) 05:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Good Star-watching Software

Ages ago I got a Meade Polaris telescope as a gift, and it came with some great astronomy software called "Starfinder" on 2 floppy disks. But alas, I have lost those disks and am having trouble finding a program that is as good as it. Can anyone lead me a website where I can find it again, or recommend any software that is simular to it? Specifically, I am looking for the following features:

-Simple rendering of the ground and the horizon (so I know what I can and can't see!)

-Symbols and labels (instead of fancy rendering like Celestia)

-A "nightvision" mode that makes the entire UI red-coloured to preserve vision in the dark (this is the most important feature)

Thanks in advance. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I had that exact software with those same 2 floppy disks O_O I was like 8 years old and I loved flicking nightvision on and off :D It was just tweaking windows "Appearance" tab settings though.. you could probably tweak your own and save it as a template then restore that every time you go stargazing. Or just use the normal screen, turn down your screen brightness (look for sun or lamp icons in blue) :D\=< (talk) 20:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a great suggestion, but changing the appearance of Windows won't change the colour of the UI button icons and sky view. I'm surprised that there aren't many stargazing programs with this great feature. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 20:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Try Stellarium. It is free and has all the features you asked for, plus much more. Morana (talk) 06:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Or Cartes du Ciel. Also free, but a bit more practical. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Help thief!!!!!

why did i buy a seagate 80 gb not 79 not 76 not 81 gb and when i install its reads i have 76 gb.thats outright theft.why dont they just say their selling a 76 gb hdd.another thing i buy a 512 mb of ram but i have a 480 or something..dont vendors know this or is it a ploy to hook u in their trap of insufficient storage and memory so u keep on adding more stuff.can i overclock my hdd to increase its size?if i email those guys of seagate can they hook me with an extra 4gb of storage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.113.117 (talk) 20:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See Gigabyte. Seagate is even quoted in the article. Short answer - to a guy in marketing, 1 GB = 10⁹, or 1,000,000,000. To a computer geek, 1 GB = 2³⁰, or 1,073,741,824. 80*10⁹=80,000,000. 74.5*2³⁰=79,993,765,888. Close enough for government work. --LarryMac | Talk 20:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Where are you getting 74.5? :D\=< (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Grin. See today's XKCD, second row from the bottom. For more helpful reading, see Binary_prefix#Legal_disputes, which someone should clean up, someone seems to have some sort of a problem with lawyers mopping up millions while the working man labors. For some reason. :D\=< (talk) 20:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hard drive and RAM measurements are basically an estimate. It is nigh impossible to get an accurate number for storage. The explanation may also lie with the fact that hard drives store data in "clusters" of a certain size. This means that some space cannot be used. It is better with NTFS than it is with FAT32, but you will still lose some storage space as a result. There is also LarryMac's answer, which is part of the problem as well. So, it is both an issue of size labeling as well as the restrictions of data storage methods. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What you're describing is internal fragmentation, and is why you won't be able to fit 79,993,765,888 bytes of data on your 79,993,765,888-byte hard drive. What LarryMac is describing is why your computer reports an 80-gigabyte hard drive as 74. gigabytes. --Carnildo (talk) 20:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You always lose 7% of the drive size. I bought a 750GB external drive and it's actual capacity is 698GB (a loss of 52GB and you're distraught over 4, which, on the other hand, is still enough to install a good first-person-shooter). Useight (talk) 21:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No way it's always 7% :D\=< (talk) 22:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It was less when the disk sizes were measured in megabytes. When terabytes come, the edge will be 10% Admiral Norton ^(talk) 22:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

As I've said before, the hard drive companies are in the right here. The problem is the senseless software industry practice of reporting file and drive sizes in mebibytes and gibibytes instead of megabytes and gigabytes. It confuses the heck out of most users, and it's far less convenient than decimal units in virtually every situation even for geeks. -- BenRG (talk) 23:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

internal or no internal fragmentation..why do they label them as 80 gb.i cant blame software makers or anybody apart from the manufacture.its a basic priciple.i go to the shop buy something and actually expect that specific things.What next?i go to buy kaspersky 6 and am given a kaspersky 7?Manufacturers know the market very well..and they msot certainly know all the ups and downs in their products.Why is the consumer allowed to bear the brunt in technological flaws..because they explicitly labelled my hdd as 80 gb.no warning was given that am losing a whole 4 gb.I wouldnt be haing a problem if they actually told me am buyng a 76 gb hd.and on reaching home i get a 76 gb.plain and simple..so I think all this excuses is just but an eyeshutter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.113.117 (talk) 23:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There's actually usually a warning on the hard drive's box, something like, "Actual capacity will be less." Useight (talk) 00:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It is an 80 gigabyte drive. It's also 76 gibibytes. Gibibytes are a different unit. You didn't lose anything. That's like saying you lost 9 of something in going from 100 yards to 91 meters. Yes, the hard drive manufacturers and the software manufacturers should get together and agree to use the same units. They should both use gigabytes, because it's a more sensible unit. Unfortunately they don't. But that doesn't mean you lost something. -- BenRG (talk) 01:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

What, gibibyte is the more sensible unit! Who uses 10s? :D\=< (talk) 03:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

OOh! THERES gigabyte and theres gibibyte?silly me.if you put it that way thats cool.But what about ram?you cant tell me theres also mibibiytye? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.113.117 (talk) 02:45, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Uh well there's mebibyte. :D\=< (talk) 03:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

More likely is that your computer is using the memory from 480meg to 512 for a 32meg video card that is built into the motherboard. --Trieste (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not the case if you have a video card installed. As an interesting side note, Windows XP Pro and Home will not display more than 2.5GB RAM properly but XP Media Center will. Useight (talk) 23:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention that he's completely wrong. Shared video memory thieves memory from RAM, not from the hard drive. I bet there are safeguards to keep that memory from being paged/swapped, or maybe that memory isn't addressable by the OS without going through the video card :D\=< (talk) 15:39, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Or perhaps you'd like to re-read the original question, in particular the sentence that begins "another thing ...". --LarryMac | Talk 15:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

O :D\=< (talk) 17:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

And it may have been noted, but I haven't seen any harddrive as of late that doesn't have a note on the box explicitly stating that "1GB = 10⁹ bytes" -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Empty boxes

I am creating a to-do list on Word 2007, I was wondering if there was a way other then manually adding an empty box at the end of each item, where I could check it off when each task is completed, if there was an autoset way to add in theose boxes rather than using autoshapes or drawing a box myself because the line-up always ends up crooked? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.174.50 (talk) 21:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

OneNote 2007 has this feature, as is usually bundled with Word 2007. Do you have it? Ale_Jrb^talk 22:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Isn't one of the dingbats you can use with a bulleted list a box of some kind?

Atlant (talk) 00:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is Microsoft's tutorial on making a checklist. It says it's specific to Word 2003, but I would imagine it's a fairly similar process in the newer version. I found that page by using Word's help facility and searching for "check box". --LarryMac | Talk 13:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice tip! Thanks. However, according to the tutorial, enabling the toggle disables editing; enabling editing disables the toggle. Is there an alternative way where checkboxes can be toggled on and off any time? --Kjoonlee 10:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)